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Mar 6, 2011

The nonprofit DFM News, launched in June, last week received a big (but undisclosed) funding boost from a major and ongoing sponsorship from the Corporation Service Co., a Wilmington-based business, legal and financial services firm, reports Delaware Online. The site focuses on state and local government, business, science and education. At the helm is Micheline Boudreau of WHYY's Delaware Tonight newscast, which ended production in 2009. Delaware First Media's staff is currently made up of three full-time employees and a dozen freelancers, and is planning to add more of each as it expands over the next two years.

In the past three years, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has invested more than $90 million in federal funds on new journalism initiatives, points out the Associated Press. In one of CPB's local news initiatives, stations in Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico have hired nine reporters for its Fronteras: The Changing America Desk bureau. "I think we have a place at the table," and more respect, said Natalie Walsh, senior news producer, "now that we have the boots on the ground to back it up."